If you think YALSA as opposed to ALA is a softer option for volunteering your professional, think again! These people are dedicated. Youth services is a calling and so is throwing your hat in the proverbial ring. It’s a ring not of doom, but a multi-ring circus, and your committee chair is the ringmaster. But wait! Don’t walk away yet! There is hope for the more casual contributor. And indeed some of the smaller, less time-consuming contributions may in fact lead to bigger and better things.
Tag: YALSA
Talkin’ ’bout Collaboration
Collaboration. You know it’s good; you’re probably doing it. But are you taking the time to talk about it? In the holiday spirit of sharing, the AASL/ALSC/YALSA Interdivisional Committee on School-Public Library Cooperation encourages you to share the results and impact of your collaborations with your administration, stakeholders, and community, and with your professional peers as well. Most of us may feel too busy to take the time – and we may think our experiences are no big deal, that they won’t be interesting or instructive to others. And certainly, we tend to keep our experiences to ourselves when they don’t meet our own high expectations. But you may be surprised at who else would benefit, and how they will respond! My colleague, author and educational consultant Cherie Pandora, and I surveyed Ohio public and school librarians in spring 2014 to learn about their collaborations, and how and with whom…
Do you know about the MAE Award?
Many ALSC Members are also YALSA members. At the request of the Chair of the 2015 MAE Jury Award for Best Literature for Teens, here is information about an Award in which many of you might be interested. *********************************************************************** YALSA members who have run an exceptional reading or literature program in the 12 months leading up to Dec. 1, 2014 are eligible to apply for the 2015 MAE Award for Best Literature Program for Teens, which recognizes an outstanding reading or literature program for young adults. Do you run a spectacular teen book club that engages underserved audiences? Did your summer reading program or literature festival connect teens with literature in an innovative way? Is your Reader’s Advisory always three steps ahead of a trend? Have you connected teens to literature or helped them gain literacy skills via some other exciting means? Whether the program was large or small, if…
It’s All in the Cards: School-Public Library Collaboration
Remember the credit card ad campaign that asked TV viewers, “What’s in your wallet?” It had a bunch of Viking-types doing all sorts of bold and daring stuff, empowered by a piece of plastic that put the world at their fingertips. Oh, the adventure! Oh, the intrigue! Oh, I can do you one better: Imagine those Vikings are the kids and teens we see every day at our libraries. When we shout out, “What’s in your wallet?” to their sea of smiling faces, and each and every one of them proudly exclaims, “My library card!” Awesome, right? Now that’s an ad I’d watch the Super Bowl to see. As public library professionals, we know we’re handing kids the world when we hand them library cards. The best part? Our school library colleagues know that, too. That makes September the perfect time to collaborate with the schools in your community. It’s…
Teens Get Brutally Honest about YA Books #alaac14
Teens express their opinions about YALSA’s Best Fiction For Young Adults. There were some intelligently thought out opinions- some good and some bad. If they didn’t think the book should be on the list, they defiantly said so!
Marcus Sedgwick Accepts the Printz Award #alaac14
Teens, Technology, and Literacy Author Panel #alaac14
Lindsey Leavitt, Scott Westerfeld, and Neal Shusterman talk about writing for teens and how technology plays a part in YA fiction. Moderator Jack Bauer asks the panel why they write for teens. “Writing for this age group gives teens perspective on the way they see themselves and the world.” Neal Shusterman
Cross-Unders
The following piece is cross-posted on the YALSABlog. For more cross-under resources, visit The Hub. Whether we’re serving older teens whose tastes have matured or trying to appease faculty members who need to catch up on a book club, teen and youth librarians are all familiar with adult cross-overs–books originally published for adults that nonetheless have teen appeal. (YALSA even has an award for them!) But what about cross-unders? With limited budgets, it can be tempting to limit young adult collections to titles actually written for young adults. And the question of where to shelve books has always been a touchy subject–if teens are reading adult books, should the library buy two copies? Are teens even allowed in the children’s area? In schools, we can’t expect teens to leave the building to find the books they want to read–and again, high school students may not even be able to check…